I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there be no redress.

I always wish to find great virtues where there are great talents, and to love what I admire...

Among many reasons for being stupid it may be urged, it is being like other people, and living like one’s neighbours, and indeed without it, it may be difficult to love some neighbours as oneself: now seeing the necessity of being dull, you won’t, I hope, take it amiss that you find me so...

To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle’s rule is like trying a man by the Laws of one Country who acted under those of another.

. . . there is a much higher character from that of a wit or a poet or a savant, which is that of a rational sociable being, willing to carry on the commerce of life with all the sweetness and condescension, decency and virtue will permit.

The only thing one can do one day one did not do the day before is to die.

I often think that those people are the happiest who know nothing at all of the world, and sitting in the little empire of the fireside, where there is no contention or cabal, think we are in a golden age of existance.

You will find many a creature by earth, air, and water, that is more beautiful than a woman.

Few people know anything of the English history but what they learn from Shakespear; for our story is rather a tissue of personal adventures and catastrophes than a series of political events.

Our collection of men is very antique, they stand in my list thus: A man of sense, a little rusty, a beau a good deal the worse for wearing, a coxcomb extremely shattered, a pretty gentleman very insipid, a baronet very solemn, a squire very fat, a fop much affected, a barrister learned in Coke upon Littleton, but who knows nothing of `long ways for marry as will', an heir apparent, very awkward; which of these will cast a favourable eye upon me I don't know.